The funding was awarded following a competitive process with other EU states, and the Irish partners were selected on the basis of the potential savings their projects could deliver to consumers across the European Union.

The Irish trials are among seven field trials taking place across Europe under the FINESCE project, which is investigating an open IT infrastructure for smart energy services. Within the Irish trials, the three Irish partners ESB, Intune Networks and TSSG (WIT) will team up with European partners Ericsson, Alcatel Lucent, Orange Labs, Alstom and the RWTH research center to test the application of advanced internet technologies and architectures to support smart grid requirements in two main areas:

Balancing the electricity system using dynamic control of electric vehicle charging

Enhancing the functionality and efficiency of the networks using advanced optical burst telecommunications switching technology.

“This project highlights Ireland’s leadership in the area of smart networks and demonstrates the potential for Irish innovations to be used to deliver savings and achieve sustainability targets across Europe,” said minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte.

“The trials will use the state-of-the-art technology provided by the Exemplar network, demonstrating the importance of this network as a test bed to advance telecoms research in Ireland.”